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Canadian border guards at an inspection booth at the Douglas border crossing on the Canada-USA border in Surrey, B.C.

Photograph by: Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/Files
, Postmedia News

OTTAWA — The Canada Border Services Agency has set a quota to try to strip at least 875 refugees of their status this fiscal year — four-and-a-half times last year’s target — in a move one immigration expert calls “absolutely outrageous.”

According to an operational bulletin obtained by Vancouver immigration lawyer and policy analyst Richard Kurland through access to information legislation, the CBSA identified the “cessation and vacation of refugee status” as one of “five enforcement and intelligence priorities” for 2013-14.

As such, it plans to refer a “minimum” of 875 cases a year to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) tasked with adjudicating such cases. It also wants to boost the number of cessation and vacation hearings held before the IRB each year and to ensure those stripped of status are deported “as soon as possible.”

“Placing a greater focus on these cases will enable the government to improve the integrity of the refugee system,” CBSA spokeswoman Patrizia Giolti wrote in an email, noting refugee laws adopted two years ago “provide for enhanced focus on investigating these types of cases.”

Refugee status can be ceased or vacated — in other words taken away — if an individual misrepresented facts in their application, if they were found to have returned to the country they claim was persecuting them, or if the circumstances in their country of origin have changed.

According to the CBSA, 192 such cases were referred to the IRB last year. Meanwhile, IRB figures from 2011 show 115 cases were finalized. The majority were vacation requests — those involving misrepresentation — and most were allowed, leading to the stripping of status.

The decision, however, has baffled refugee advocates, infuriated immigration experts and raised resource concerns for the IRB.

“I’m extremely alarmed to see quotas being attached to proceedings of this nature,” said Sharry Aiken, immigration law professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “Refugee status is an individuated, adjudicated situation based on individual circumstances and certainly, should facts come to light that should suggest cessation/vacation procedures are in order, that’s appropriate, but the very notion that an arbitrary number can be picked out of a hat for instituting these proceedings is absolutely outrageous.”

Although final decisions are made by a “quasi-judicial” body that’s supposed to be impervious to political interference, she argues the quota is certainly in keeping with a string of new laws, and government rhetoric, that suggest the Conservatives are “keen on rescinding the welcome mat for refugees.”

Such quotas are also “likely to lead to serious backlogs” for the IRB, she added.

While the government would not say whether the quota has anything to do with a commitment by former immigration minister Jason Kenney last spring to review the status of refugees whose home countries have experienced a regime change, Aiken said that kind of attitude is cause for concern.

Kenney cited the case of Egyptian nationals who received refugee status due to their membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, a previously outlawed group that came to power after the revolution. At the time, Kenney said members should “be delighted to go back and participate in the government of their party,” however, months later the group was ousted and returned to its former status.

“There’s supposed to be a pretty high test for circumstances changing. It’s not just a new government or the end of the war. It’s supposed to be fundamental, lasting, durable changes,” she said, noting Kenney’s comments were rash.

“Just because something has shifted overnight doesn’t mean that what you were afraid of yesterday is no longer a concern today.”

Under the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, which became law in June 2012, losing refugee status means the automatic loss of permanent residency as well. The chief protection against removal from Canada is to obtain citizenship, but the government has also made that more difficult and processing backlogs have left many waiting years to be naturalized.

Canadian Council for Refugees executive director Janet Dench believes many of these cases have been flagged when individuals apply for citizenship and are asked to account for their travels. Citing a pair of cases that have come to her attention, she does not believe an Iranian woman returning home briefly to care for a sick relative is reason enough to strip her of her status and suggests Canada is doing a disservice by trying to revoke the status of an established businessman who’s employing Canadians.

Apart from those suspected of fraud, she’s left “scratching (her) head” trying to figure out what the government is “trying to achieve” given all the money that’s spent on integrating refugees, and anticipates a disconnect between what the CBSA refers and what are true cessation/vacation cases as determined by the IRB.

“The IRB is likely to have to turn down a lot of these applications depending on how they apply the rules,” she said.

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